Record-low attendance for WPIAL titles

PIAA brackets usually in two-year cycles, so likely Class 5A and 6A championships will have to be played a week earlier

Attendance for the WPIAL football championship games at Acrisure Stadium, formerly known as Heinz Field, has been down for several years in the past decade or so. But this year, attendance hit rock bottom.

The WPIAL staged the Class 1A, 2A, 3A and 4A championships at Acrisure on Friday, and attendance for the four-game was only 9,572.

The WPIAL started playing four championships in one day on the North Shore in 1986. They continued the four-game extravaganza for 35 of the next 37 years. The only two years they didn’t have four games in one day was in 2020 because of COVID-19 (all title games were played at high school fields) and last year when two games were played on one day and three the next. This year is by far the lowest attendance ever for four championship games. The preview lows were 12,000 in 2017, 13,612 in 2018 and 14,110 in 2019.

While the attendance was low this year, it should be pointed out that this was the first year that at least one of the largest classification games was not played at Acrisure. That surely affected attendance some. The Class 6A and 5A championships were played at Norwin High School on Nov. 19 because the champions in those two classifications entered the PIAA playoffs a week earlier in the quarterfinals this past Friday. The Class 1A through 4A WPIAL champions enter the PIAA playoffs in the semifinals this Friday.

If the Class 5A and 6A championships were at Acrisure Stadium this year instead of, say, the Class 1A and 2A championships, attendance might have been over 12,000. The WPIAL does not have attendance figures for the Class 5A and 6A title games.

The WPIAL did not want to use Acrisure Stadium two different times this year. One of the reasons was that both Pitt and the Steelers played at home Nov. 19 and 20. Surely, the Steelers wouldn’t want to have two high school games played there Friday. Also, it is rather costly for the WPIAL to put the games at Heinz. Vince Sortino, chief operating officer at the WPIAL, said earlier this year that the league hopes to have a crowd of 15,000 in order to turn a profit.

But look for more of the same next year. The PIAA brackets usually go in two-year cycles, so it’s likely the WPIAL Class 5A and 6A championships will have to be played a week earlier than the other four classifications. If the largest classifications can’t play at Heinz and less than 10,000 fans are going to show up — and thus the league is going to lose money — it might make one think whether the WPIAL would consider not playing games on the North Shore next year.

It’s to the point where WPIAL boys and girls basketball championships are now outdrawing the football title games. Consider that four games — two boys and two girls — were played at the Pitt’s Petersen Center on a Thursday night in March. The crowd for those games was 10,170.

The crowd for five games two days later was 10,377.

Zero passing

Steel Valley won the WPIAL Class 2A title Friday without zero yards passing. Crazy? Not really.

In all championship games at Three Rivers Stadium and Acrisure Stadium, this was actually the eighth time that a team did not have any yards passing. And five of those teams won championships.

Before Steel Valley, the last team to have no passing yards and win was Quaker Valley in 2017, when it defeated Aliquippa 2-0 during a contest played mostly in the rain.

Other teams that didn’t have any yards passing and won a title at Three Rivers or Acrisure Stadium: Farrell in 1996, Penn Hills in 1995 and Western Beaver in 1994. Teams with no passing yards that lost in title games: Central Catholic in 2013, McKeesport in 1999 and Riverside in 1991.

Running wins

In this era of spread formations, one-back sets, shotgun formations and teams throwing the ball often, there was an interesting fact that came out of the WPIAL championships this season: Not one of the teams that won championships at Acrisure Stadium or the week before at Norwin had more yards passing than their opponent. And in all six games, the teams with more yards rushing were 6-0.

The winning teams in this year’s championships combined for a measly 463 yards passing, while the losing teams combined for 921 yards in the air.

Now get this: The winning teams combined for 1,241 yards rushing while the six losing teams had only 473.

Palko-Niedbala connection

There was a coach with nine WPIAL football championships helping out a little at Union’s football practice Wednesday. And that same coach was on the sideline for the WPIAL Class 1A championship Friday, wearing a blue “Union” hat.

Bob Palko, who recently finished his fourth season as Mt. Lebanon’s coach, became a Union fan this year because of a coaching buddy. In his first season as coach, Kim Niedbala guided Union to a WPIAL title, the first at the school since the Scotties won a co-championship in 1959 when they tied Avonworth, 13-13.

Niedbala and Union are one of the feel-good stories this year in the WPIAL, and Niedbala and Palko are good friends. Niedbala was on Palko’s staff for Palko’s final four years at West Allegheny. Then Niedbala was Palko’s defensive coordinator at Mt. Lebanon for the past three years, including last season when the Blue Devils won WPIAL and PIAA titles.

During the victory against Bishop Canevin, Palko stood on Union’s sideline and spoke with

Niedbala a few times about strategy.

“He’s my guy. I’d do anything to help him,” Palko said. “You knew he’d do a great job.”

Maybe no one should be surprised at Niedbala winning. It seems to follow him. He was a standout receiver and defensive back on a 1991 WPIAL championship team at Blackhawk that won a WPIAL championship. He was the starting point guard on Blackhawk’s 1992 WPIAL and state championship basketball team that featured Dante Calabria and is considered one of the WPIAL’s best teams in the past four decades or so.

Niedbala went on to be a Division II All-American defensive back at Clarion and played in the NCAA Division II playoffs. He was also an assistant for teams at Clarion and Edinboro that made the national tournament.

This Bergman works finals

There was an NFL official in the Acrisure Stadium press box Friday. No, he didn’t serve as an officials evaluator. He was simply watching his son.

Jerry Bergman is a longtime NFL official whose son, Tyler, worked the Class 3A championship as a line judge. Tyler Bergman has been officiating only a few years but has moved up and got to work a WPIAL title game.

Black and white stripes run in this family. Jerry Bergman and his brother, Jeff, are current NFL officials. Their father, Gerard, also was a longtime NFL official. All three of those Bergmans started their officiating careers working midget league games and then WPIAL games before eventually moving on to the NFL ranks.

“But none of us ever were chosen to work a WPIAL championship,” Jerry Bergman said. “Tyler was the first. So he’s done something we didn’t.”